Ebrima Manneh

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Good news for Gambia's beleaguered independent press has been rare
during President Yahya Jammeh's 17-year rule, but last week brought three potentially
positive developments. It's unclear whether they mark a real change in the
status quo, but they may at least increase the resolve of advocacy groups to
seek improvements.

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On Thursday, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin sent a letter to Gambia's
justice minister, Edward Gomez, renewing his appeal for the release of local
journalist Ebrima
"Chief" Manneh. Manneh disappeared more than five years ago after security
agents seized him at the offices of his newspaper, the Daily Observer.

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New York, October 11, 2011 - An official of the Gambian government publicly indicated knowledge of the whereabouts of missing journalist Ebrima "Chief" Manneh, according to news reports. The government, which has repeatedly denied any involvement in Manneh's 2006 disappearance, must immediately disclose the details of his status, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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The Gambia
has an image problem: Dubbed the "Smiling
Coast of Africa,"
it is a tourist destination, but its
government has one of the region's worst records of human rights abuses. On
Tuesday, at an African tourism promotion event in New
York City, Gambian Vice-President Isatou Njie-Saidy
headed a delegation working toward improving the negative perceptions of the
country.

In a discussion with Njie-Saidy after the event, I mentioned to her that an Internet search of the Gambia yields many results about its human right abuses. In response, she shifted the topic to the United States: "Do they tell you about Guantánamo Bay? Seems like a human rights issue," she said. "And, you know, in the Internet, you have a lot of garbage. ... Don't believe everything you read: You have to look in between." She later accused social media of peddling untruths: "Social media is the problem," she said.

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New
York, July 6, 2011--Gambian President Yahya Jammeh must clarify
his March 16 comments suggesting
that detained journalist "Chief" Ebrima Manneh has died, the Committee to
Protect Journalists said today. CPJ's call comes ahead of the fifth anniversary
of the July 7, 2006, arrest of Manneh, left, who disappeared after being taken into government
custody.

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Last week, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh participated in a
rare meeting with select members of the West
African nation's press corps. Jammeh spoke in favor of access to public information.
He announced that he would allow The
Standard newspaper to resume publication, five months after the National
Intelligence Agency forced its editor, Sheriff Bojang, to halt production. But the
president largely lashed out at the Gambian private press and critics of his repressive
media policies in the meeting, a tense session that was broadcast on
state television. Jammeh, a former army captain who seized power in a 1994 coup,
spoke in a harsh and contemptuous tone as he addressed media owners invited to
the State House in the capital, Banjul.

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Dear President Jammeh: We request clarification of your March 16 comments suggesting "Chief" Ebrima Manneh, a reporter for the Daily Observer, may have died. Manneh disappeared after witnesses saw him being arrested by state security agents in the offices of the Daily Observer on July 7, 2007. The government has previously denied any knowledge of Manneh's fate.

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"President
Jammeh bags 4 awards," trumpeted a September 17 headline of the Daily Observer, a pro-government newspaper
in the Gambia, a West African nation whose idyllic façade as "the
smiling coast of Africa" is maintained in part by President Yahyah Jammeh's
brutal repression of the independent press.

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Who would not like to enjoy luxurious beach resorts and quaint fishing
villages on the “Smiling Coast of Africa”? This is the pitch that the Gambian
government made to participants of an international tourism conference last week. In
fact, behind the idyllic facade of a tropical paradise wedged on Africa's
western Atlantic coast is the grimace of Gambia's independent press.

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For more than two years, U.S. Sen. Richard J. Durbin and a group of Senate colleagues have been pressing for the release
of Gambian journalist “Chief” Ebrima Manneh, left. In July 2006, security agents arrested
Manneh at his workplace at the Daily
Observer and have since held him incommunicado and without charge. On
Thursday, Durbin and four other senators sent a letter to Kamalesh Sharma, secretary-general
of the Commonwealth of Nations, urging him to
launch an investigation into the case.